Hi Guys, I wanted to share this with you!
A friend of mine and I recently started to produce our own covers, him behind the cam, me behind the kit! This is a little report of how we did it and what we were thinking about when making certain decisions..

Our very first attemp to film a cover was in oktober 2012. We filmed in my rehearsal room here in Wuppertal, Germany without any type of set or any idea what we were doing. We used (and still do) the DIY dolly of my friend Boris. We just recorded audio with two overhead mics and filmed like 20 takes with my friend's Canon 600d. Then we decided for one take (audio wise) and just tried to sync the other takes so we would have options to cut between differnt angles. We used and still use Adobe Premiere Pro. (We can add more information about exporting from Premiere Pro for Youtube if you like.)

While editing we realized, that often times video and audio wouldn't be in sync due to the fact, that I like to improvise my drum fills a lot to not get stuck in licks and prewritten fills/ideas.
So we ended up switching back and forth between Logic Pro and Premiere Pro to decide which parts of the video would come next (in like 15 seconds pieces). As you might think this workflow turned out to be very long and difficult, especially when Premiere Pro is not running properly while Logic Audio is running (AAHHHH).

We ended up not finishing that cover, but we had learned a lot of what not to do: Workflow, terrible! Look of the video, pretty bad.. How I looked, äh not good enough certainly (we decided for a ton of takes where you could see my underwear or where i just looked fat and ugly due to the wide-angle lens.) Focus, not really sharp! Dolly rides, way to hectic... etc...
At least we had started and could now use our knowledge for our next try.

Our next video we shot in an old and fucked up train-something kinda hall (they used to do something with trains in there but we still don't know what).
Of course we were allowed to shoot there.. *not
So it came that we arrived there with a car full of equipment including the drumkit, carpet, microphones, audio interface, current generator, light etc...
We couldn't really park the car closely, so we first walked there and met a weird old dude, who used to work at that hall like 20 years ago and who told us to fuck off because we were not allowed to shoot there.
"Oh we didn't know we weren't allowed, of course we will get a permission by the owner, no problem!"
As soon as the old guy disappeared we (Boris the cam guy and Joss, another great friend) started to get all the stuff into that old hall. And it took long. After at least an hour of carrying we finally had everything in there.

Boris said he was gonna go back to the car and pick up a sandwich, yeah sure, go ahead..
He came back pale. "Just met the old guy, he'll call the police in 30 minutes".

Ok, at least 30 min for soundcheck, checking all the angles and filming (with one cam again). (AHHHHHHH)
We did our best, here is what we made out of it (after like 30h editing):

So this time we learned that it actually was a good idea to get a location where we could actually shoot. Also while editing we realized that the Canon 600d was really unstable, so we had to stabilize almost all the material. Thats when we started doubting about the Canon 600D (Also the footage wasn't all that sharp as we like to have it, since the output is full hd, but it is kinda scaled from a lower size, so not full resolution actually)
So next to the normal editing it took a long time for sharpening and color grading, but I think it came out pretty ok..

The next thing we did was to get my room in a kinda good shape so that it would look a little bit more professional. Boris bought a couple of light umbrellas (is that the actual name?) and we tried again.
We also arranged a Panasonic Lumix GH3 and are very pleased with the footage now. Our new footage is not even graded in post production, that's what comes straight out of the cam.
Also I borrowed a couple of great mics from a friend and thats where we are now.

We want to build up a channel and also do tutorials and other interesting stuff! Also a couple of drummer friends of mine will be joining in soon! In the end we'd like to make a real own website with a teaching program, but that's for the future. Now we just want to focus on shooting great footage and getting known on youtube. If you like our stuff, don't hesitate to subscribe to our channel or like our facebook page! We really appreciate it!

Thank you very much sir! I'm using a Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute Snare in 14x6,5 (I believe) with a Remo Ambassador. On Toms I normally use Ambassadors oder Whetherkings, but the Ambassadors tend to die way earlier, so I'll probably go back to Whetherkings. The difference isn't actually big at all (I thought it would be terrible to put such thick skins on a hyperdrive drum). The tone lenghts almost didn't change at all, only the attack is a bit different.. Oh, and BTW, on the Floortom I feel a Whetherking is too thick and short, so even when I'm using Whetherkings on the upper Toms, I still use an Ambassador on the Floor..
On Kick I'm using a Powerstroke 3 right now, before I had a Renaissance Powerstroke 3, also pretty cool! The Renaissance has even less agressive highs in the attack, I don't like that and bad engeneers seem to always make my bassdrum sound like metal, but with that head they don't get this sound out.. haha.. The kick with that head is more in the mids, not so much in the highs but still sounds like a good rock bassdrum..